[5.4] Brusalk's Destruction Warlock guide

[Grizelda]

Try not to giggle so loud into the mike as you tear up the meters.

[Moggie]

I may have interpreted what you were saying incorrectly, but that to me implies that you don't agree with the sims results that Haste is king for single target.

It was also in response to the next post after yours which explicitly referred to the same situations.


Also, many of my posts (while I quote one person in particular) may be directed in a more general sense to answer questions/misconceptions that I see in a general sense.


I apologize if I offended, but I didn't want that misconception to continue to be repeated over and over again.

All good. Like I said, between the 9700 trinket proc on top of meta and the 5700'ish haste, it simply turns hellish it feels like, not including Bloodlust. And you're right about my not 100% relying on sims saying Haste > all. I think, as pixul points out it's probably best to simply go for say (for example) 4717 breakpoint (or w/e it is which I cannot think of atm) then going Mastery. Trinkets, Meta Gems do factor in and tbh, simcraft has been not all too swell this xpac for locks at least so just something to take with a grain of salt. I agree, haste has a lot more benefits than most give it credit for Destro but with only 2 or 3 single target (sorta) fights in the whole raid zone then it's value goes down in favor of Mastery as you know. Anyways, I'd probably have a different POV if I had actual decent ToT trinkets besides the UVLS and VP trinket, but alas my raid hates caster gear in general.

[Novx]

I don't usually play destro, but my guild's next boss will be primordius hc. I understand that going with GoSac and mannoroth's fury and keep RoF everywhere to kill the adds is the way to go for warlocks on this fight, or so my guild wants me to go. The gearing strat for that specific fight is simply mastery > crit > haste? Any tips you could be so kind to share?

This is a bit off topic but Affliction would be a much stronger spec then Destro will for Prim HC assuming it is on 25-man.

If you are hell bent on going Destro: Mannoroths Fury + rain of Fire 1 side of adds, make sure to get Shadowburns on adds when they are low to make sure you rarely (if ever) need to cast Incinerate.

[Deleted]

I don't usually play destro, but my guild's next boss will be primordius hc. I understand that going with GoSac and mannoroth's fury and keep RoF everywhere to kill the adds is the way to go for warlocks on this fight, or so my guild wants me to go. The gearing strat for that specific fight is simply mastery > crit > haste? Any tips you could be so kind to share?

Depends what duty you have on the fight.

The way we did it on 25 man, we have some multidotters to take care of small adds (Affli is best for this)

We have 1-2 people responsible for taking care of the big adds (Personally I prefer Destro for this)

And if you're allowed to just DPS boss, then Destro is best for that. RoF hitting so many small adds would allow you to use CB as your filler, and then when Primo goes below 20% just use Shadowburn as filler. You can also havoc the big adds or primo and shadowburn snipe the small ones at low health for extra deeps (and to prevent them reaching the boss/getting killed near boss due to low health).

All in all, both Affli and Destro work well for Primo HC!

[Deleted]

Heya guyz, i see some destro lock going on full mastery (11k+)
What do you think about that ? Did you lose that much dps instead of going full mastery ?
Thx !

[Biomega]

The reason people go for high mastery is that many fights in ToT give you opportunities to increase your ember-generation beyond what is usually expected in a "vanilla" fight, such as the ones used for simulations. While haste and crit are competitive stats for single-target damage in theory, having more embers to burn means mastery becomes better.

For example, on a fight like Horridon, you can RoF many mobs frequently, and also snipe adds with Shadowburn. This will give you a lot of embers, which in turn mean you can cast a lot more ember-consuming spells - which are affected by your mastery.

There are several fights like that. Horridon, Council, Tortos, Megaera, Primordius... they all have lots of opportunities to generate extra embers.

Nevertheless, even keeping these fights in mind, going "full mastery" (i.e. gemming pure mastery over int/mastery) is usually not done for a compromise-setup. If you see people with full mastery gems, chances are they are gemming for a specific (progression) fight that favors mastery; or maybe they are mostly Demonology, and want to maximize mastery for that.

[Deleted]

Ok ty but i already got this in mind.
I just wanna know how much dps you lose by going full haste on bosses like horridon for example. =)

[Hatelocker]

I apologize if this has been addressed but I had dropped destro as my OS but am going back to it now. Last I heard there was a bug with Havoc, where if you casted havoc on your current target and then casted your spells on another target the spell would not hit your current target (i.e would act as if there was no havoc on the current target). Has this been fixed?

[Biomega]

@Link3r: the exact number depends on your setup and is difficult to predict. Generally though ToT fights don't favor full-haste setups so it's probably not an optimal choice in the first place.

@Hatelocker: I think that bug involved mouseover macros, i.e. if you had havoc on something and then cast a spell with target=mouseover, that spell would not get copied. I don't know whether that's been fixed now or not. But I do know that if you don't use mouseover for the spells you try to duplicate, it'll work fine. Same with mouseover macros for Havoc, but not other spells. I haven't personally noticed anything buggy with Havoc, recently anyway.

[Vallanah]

Awesome guide! Thanks for putting the time into this.

[Grizelda]

@Hatelocker: Brusalk posted a really good work around mouseover macro for shadowburn that avoided the problem. If you can't find it in this thread I can post it for you when I get home.

[Nivrax]

#showtooltip Havoc
/cleartarget [@mouseover,harm,nodead]
/cast [@mouseover,harm,nodead][]Shadowburn
/targetlasttarget [@mouseover,harm,nodead]

It's not perfect though. From my observation, when spamming it over many adds, it will use one Havoc charge and then get stuck with next.

[Grizelda]

I have noticed that

To that end, I have a few different Havoc and Shadowburn macros that I use. I'm sure there is a better way and I'd love to read it but:

D=Havoc target,with mod it will target focus
F=Havoc mouse over

Z=Shadowburn target
C= Shadowburn mouseover
V=Brusalks version which I use when I have a main target havoced and I want to mouseover SB a pack of adds.

[Quotey]

Is the best service grimoire to use the Felhunter? It seems to take forever to amble over to its target.

[Biomega]

I'm not sure GoServ has a place with Destro. Why would you use it over GoSup?

[Quotey]

Honestly? I miss my felhunter and want to use service for lfr and solo stuff, but don't really have a service pet preference.

[Brusalk]

Is the best service grimoire to use the Felhunter? It seems to take forever to amble over to its target.

I usually use Serv-Imp if I use Serv over Sup for exactly that reason. The only thing to keep in mind though is that it'll dispel you when it pops out. Can cause problems on Jinrok for example.

---------- Post added 2013-06-02 at 10:34 AM ----------

I'm not sure GoServ has a place with Destro. Why would you use it over GoSup?

Sup vs Serv is very close as it is. If there's fight mechanics where your pet can't be on the boss full-time, or where there is a temp damage boost you can line up with Serv, obviously Serv would pull ahead of Sup.

---------- Post added 2013-06-02 at 10:34 AM ----------

Ok ty but i already got this in mind.
I just wanna know how much dps you lose by going full haste on bosses like horridon for example. =)

Much more than you'd lose by going full mastery for single target fights.

---------- Post added 2013-06-02 at 10:36 AM ----------

All good. Like I said, between the 9700 trinket proc on top of meta and the 5700'ish haste, it simply turns hellish it feels like, not including Bloodlust. And you're right about my not 100% relying on sims saying Haste > all. I think, as pixul points out it's probably best to simply go for say (for example) 4717 breakpoint (or w/e it is which I cannot think of atm) then going Mastery. Trinkets, Meta Gems do factor in and tbh, simcraft has been not all too swell this xpac for locks at least so just something to take with a grain of salt. I agree, haste has a lot more benefits than most give it credit for Destro but with only 2 or 3 single target (sorta) fights in the whole raid zone then it's value goes down in favor of Mastery as you know. Anyways, I'd probably have a different POV if I had actual decent ToT trinkets besides the UVLS and VP trinket, but alas my raid hates caster gear in general.

If we're talking about fights with more than 2 targets then the haste discussion doesn't even matter as Mastery is better.

When talking about 1-2 targets and using Sup/Serv, haste/crit is still better than mastery. If you really don't feel like running with lots of haste then dump it into crit. (I'd still advise going full haste).

[Hugginz]

Brusalk,

Would Serv on JinRokh (with Observer/Felhunter) be better than Sup?

I'm thinking of popping BL, Doomguard, service, etc in first pool.

[Lenneth]

The guide shows Grim of Sup: Haste==Crit > Mastery, but you're saying Mastery is good as Haste. I'm confused. I am 519 ilvl, which should I be gemming now? Simcraft shows me that Haste = Mastery = Crit -.-
Pure Haste/Mastery is better than Int/Haste and Int/Mastery in this case?

[Brusalk]

Brusalk,

Would Serv on JinRokh (with Observer/Felhunter) be better than Sup?

I'm thinking of popping BL, Doomguard, service, etc in first pool.

Probably.

I think Sac is pretty competitive and might be better than Serv/Sup on that fight anyway though, depending on how good you are at pushing your ember consumers while in pools.

---------- Post added 2013-06-03 at 10:32 AM ----------

The guide shows Grim of Sup: Haste==Crit > Mastery, but you're saying Mastery is good as Haste. I'm confused. I am 519 ilvl, which should I be gemming now? Simcraft shows me that Haste = Mastery = Crit -.-
Pure Haste/Mastery is better than Int/Haste and Int/Mastery in this case?

I'm saying mastery is as good as haste (or better) in situations where there's more than 2 targets for a significant portion of the fight.

As gems are harder to change than reforges I personally use Int/Mastery because I don't want to completely switch on every fight.